ciary does not possess power to insure
adequate protection, it will then become the duty of
Congress to supply such deficiency."

Now mark! this resolution states that all the property of all the
people of any State, whether slave or otherwise, has an equal right to
protection; and if experience should at any time prove that the
courts had not the power to afford that protection, then it was the
duty of Congress to enact such laws as were necessary to protect every
man in his legal and rightful property, no matter of what description
or characteristic. Sir, not long since, upon this floor, a Senator was
hardy enough to say that I voted against protecting property in
Territories; and he desired to know what had happened that States
should be concerned; what had occurred to alarm the States that were
seceding from the Union? I will show you, sir, very briefly, what I
said upon that question then; and I will repeat it now, for I have
never changed my sentiments on this subject. No living man can assert,
and in so doing tell the truth, that I ever uttered a word against the
equality of the States, and their equal right in the common territory
of our common country; and any charge that I voted then to refuse
protection to property in the territory _is false_. I have always held
that the territory belonged to all; that it was acquired, as I knew,
at the expense of the Southern States as well as of the Northern; and
upon the battle-fields where I had witnessed the good conduct of
Northern and Southern troops, I found the soldier from the Southern
States pouring out his blood as freely, and certainly in very much
larger quantity--for there were very many more from the Southern
States who participated in the battles of our country in the war which
resulted in the acquisition of territory, than there were from the
Northern States. Then, so far as the acquisition is concerned, it is
joint, and it was for the joint benefit of all portions of the
country. Consequently, I have held, and I hold now, that the
Territories should be so appropriated. And when those resolutions were
up last winter, I said what I will now read:

"I only desire to say, in relation to the series of
resolutions, a portion of which I have already voted in
favor of, that I shall vote in favor of the rest; for the
whole of them together meet with my hearty approbation. They
assert the truth; they assert the great principle tha